Immediately the question arises: how is it possible to worship a tree, after all isn’t it like idolatry? No. A tree symbolizes life relative to the earth, which we bless and welcome.

After inanimate nature filled the entire cosmos, the vegetative nature began to develop on Earth, which is a completely new form of life because there is a spark of the Creator inside it. Therefore the vegetative life attracts us.

Then gradually animate life developed from it. The transitional stage between the still and vegetative levels are coral: between vegetative and animate life, a creature called “the dog of the field” that feeds from the ground, but its body behaves like an animal; and between the animate state and human, the monkey. This is mentioned in ancient Kabbalistic books.

The new year of the trees marks their awakening to life and symbolizes the awakening of a person to achieve the purpose of his life.

It is written in the Torah, “a man is like a tree in the field,” because a tree has a special internal structure that feeds from the ground and stretches upward toward the sun. But the most important part are its fruit. In general, any plant, everything that comes from the earth, feeds us and is the basis of the material life of humans.

Our spiritual development occurs according to the principle that in all sorts of human actions, one works with them as a tree. It is not an accident that the most important fundamental work of the great Kabbalist the Ari is titled the Tree of Life.

My teacher Rabash celebrated this day in a special way. A lot of people gathered together, tables were covered with sweets, not just with the fruits of the trees, but also with the fruits of the earth itself. The fruits represent a person who has reached his purpose, which is to become similar to the Creator, to reach His level. We want to achieve this. In principle, everyone would wish this if they understood how sweet this fruit is, this eternal, perfect existence in absolute attainment without any restrictions and problems.

Whether we want this or not, we nevertheless get closer to it. However, Kabbalah can accelerate our path if we use it correctly. Otherwise we’ll have to advance the way we do now, with the help of unpleasant blows from nature that push us forward.

In principle there is a beautiful future ahead of us and I hope that the same sweetness we feel from the good fruits of the earth and plants, we will feel from the fulfilling of our soul.

You are invited to try out this special state, to taste the real fruit of life, which the wisdom of Kabbalah offers to us.

Good luck and all the best![201822]From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 2/6/17

Question: Is the advancement of a student accelerated by constantly asking for clarification of questions that interest him but he doesn’t understand?

Answer: No! This doesn’t indicate anything. There are idiots that constantly ask questions because from their point of view it is necessary to know exactly how, what, and from where, and there are those who are the opposite, who are quiet all the time. You literally shake them up so that they will say something, but they are silent.

There is no significance to the style in which a student learns. Some write down every word, others look at the ceiling as if they don’t hear anything. It doesn’t matter! What is important is only that a student wants to learn something from me and then according to the degree of his desire, I take his point in the heart, his small Kli (vessel), and begin to fill it.

So, I have patience, and I don’t get tired. I am ready every day to do this and am afraid to miss a day. If I fly abroad, I try to have a lesson to save the day. I count my days according to those hours in which I teach.[200355]From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 8/7/16

Question: The year 2016 was a year of European fragmentation and division. How can Europe be united correctly?

Answer: This is not fragmentation and division, but the discovery of what has always existed in Europe; it has remained as it always was.

It is possible to unite it only through education! This is the only thing that the world needs. The biggest and only problem of the world is the education of people! But nobody has ever dealt with this!

This is because education represents an approach toward understanding and the possibility of loving others and connecting with them, even though according to our nature, we don’t love each other. The wisdom of Kabbalah shows us how to carry this out in spite of everything. A person must become an Adam (Man), understanding the system of nature he exists in.

This is a closed integral system that constantly develops, changes, and moves forward! Today, we are on the threshold of very serious changes: both in human society and in the nature of the environment. Let’s discover and learn how to carry out what depends on us. It all depends only on the person!

Question: In other words, would you want to add a profession in a school that studies and teaches about the inner world of a person, about his situation?

Answer: Not only his inner world but also the outer world. I want to give a person an understanding of the world in which he is living!

Comment: But even today he gets that in school when he studies the natural sciences.

My Response: I don’t see that anyone knows about the system he exists in, including the media. If politicians and public figures, no matter who, were to understand the world they are living in, would they behave the way they do?! They are so short-sighted that on their own they will ultimately destroy everything for themselves.

Question: But there was a similar attempt; Karl Marx wrote an excellent book Das Kapital. But it was implemented and distorted so much that the essential idea of fighting poverty was transformed into a struggle against wealth. We know what the result of that was. Where is the guarantee that something similar will not happen in the future?

Answer: Marx was a genius in his own way; I have no argument about that. He understood everything except for one thing: that people needed to be educated for this.

Even though this also appears here and there in his writings, it is just not in a clear and distinct form. He was lacking an emphasis on this. In order to change society, a person must be educated.

Therefore his expectation that capitalism would annihilate itself was his predictive genius. Indeed everything is happening this way in our time. Today we see that even though there has been no effort to disguise this for the past 50 years, capitalism has exhausted itself!

The problem is what is next? And here it is truly necessary to work according to Marx, but it is not possible to bring humanity to a socialist regime or even a communist one about which he spoke.

We need to realize this, but only through education, with the help of the unique energy that exists in nature! Then we can change human nature, because otherwise we will not get rid of the ego, it will devour us.[200325]From the Webinar 12/26/16

New Life #812 – The Jewish Prayer
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz

Summary

People have always felt insecure and turned to nature’s forces with different requests. A person’s inclination to turn to the upper force is natural and you can already see it in small children.

The proper appeal to the system of nature is called a prayer. A prayer includes self-examination with respect to the plan of the creation; that is, a person’s examination of how he uses his desire in relation to nature. Instead of using everyone for his own benefit, he should use himself for the sake of others, for the sake of the Creator.

When a person turns to the system of nature it is called a prayer. The three daily prayers correlate with the three spiritual phases and they begin as a new egoistic desire enters the system and starts to operate in it. The awakening of a new desire in a person, a corrupt desire, is called evening.

From a spiritual perspective every day begins in the evening when a person refrains from using the new desire that has awakened in him, the morning comes, which means that things become clear with the understanding of how to work with this desire. The phase of working with this desire and the incorporation in the system is called noon.

There is a state in the system of nature called the end of correction, Gmar Tikun, toward which we are advancing. In Gmar Tikun we have to reach a state in which we are connected in one system in absolute love.From KabTV’s “New Life #812 – The Jewish Prayer,” 1/17/17